Pocket the Change

If you change nothing, nothing changes

Written by Sally-Anne Blanshard
Imagine being on a train. You know where it is heading, how many carriages it has, what stops have gone by so far and what stops are ahead of you. Feels safe. Secure in the knowledge you will reach your chosen destination. Now imagine someone asking you to get off that train. Step onto another. With a blindfold on! No idea what the journey looks like. Not quite sure where the train will stop.How would you feel now? Uneasy? Nervous? A little scared.Making changes in any aspect of your life is hard. It takes commitment, focus and a belief in yourself and your future.Change can be exciting, exhausting, fantastic and frightening.I have had a whirlwind two months. My husband arrived back from a business trip announcing that he had been approached about a job in Brisbane. And from there our family was catapulted into change central.I tried my hardest to remain calm throughout the lengthy job interview process. I openly accepted that change was here to stay for a while. What was normal to us was thrown into a blender and mixed on high setting for many weeks.It would have been easy to take the easy option and not move interstate.Less to think about.
Less to plan.
Less to do on the to-do lists.Yet the unknown future was something that was appealing. It was exciting. We could not cover our eyes to what was calling and when we took a peek with a weekend up there, to remind us of what change offered, we liked it.

The other thing that is good about change is the big conversations it starts. What you want for your future. Your children’s future. Where you are at and where you want to be. What you like about your lifestyle and what you would like to change. It enables you to start over with some of those lingering habits.

I personally think change is something we start to fear, as we get older. We can get set in our ways. We react to certain things the same way. I remember having a chat with a friend who shared her concern over what I must be going through. I explained that with such mammoth amount of change going on I wanted to challenge my usual reactions. So, what may have normally been a high stress situation with a reaction of high stress emotions I was channeling as much calm through our family as possible. I think it worked.

It has been an exciting, exhausting, fantastic and frightening 8 weeks. We arrived in Brisbane last week, unpacked, explored and tomorrow my husband starts his new job.

Change is here to stay for a while.

What are you going to change this year?

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